sans-culotte

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. An extreme radical republican during the French Revolution.

n. A revolutionary extremist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A fellow without breeches; a ragged fellow; -- a name of reproach given in the first French revolution to the extreme republican party, who rejected breeches as an emblem peculiar to the upper classes or aristocracy, and adopted pantaloons.

n. Hence, an extreme or radical republican; a violent revolutionist; a Jacobin.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. Literally, one who is without breeches: a name given to the poorer men of Paris who were prominent in the first French Revolution and took part in the attacks upon the court, the Bastille, etc.

n. Hence An advanced Republican; a revolutionist; by extension, a communist or anarchist.

Etymologies

French : sans, without + culotte, breeches.

(American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

From French sans-culotte. (Wiktionary)

Examples

Sectional assemblies were typically the hotbeds of direct democracy and sans-culotte militancy.

He asserted that the family of the tyrant ought not to be better treated than any sans-culotte family; and he had caused a resolution to be passed by which the sort of luxury in which the prisoners in the Temple were maintained was to be suppressed.

But if we were a Republic — you know I am an old Jacobin, sans-culotte and terrorist — if this were a real Republic with the Convention sitting and a Committee of Public Safety attending to national business, you would all get your heads cut off.

The hurdle you just don't seem able to jump is the fact that the Taliban ARE the people of Afghanistan, the same as the Minutemen WERE the people of the US, the Viet Cong WERE the people of Vietnam, the sans-culotte WERE the people of France...